From:	shadowrn@*********.com (Hahns Shin)
Subject:	ShadowRN digest, Vol 1 #1744 - 6 msgs
Date:	Thu Jan 24 16:00:01 2002

> appropriate, and (yet again) we have applied some mythical code of
> ethics to the Japanese (who were responsible for about a million
deaths
> by medical experimentation and torture in Manchuria back during
WWII,
> along
> with the Battan Deathmarch).
> People, please!
I would just like to remind our gentle readers that the United States
had their own concentration camps of Asian-Americans during World War
II. The Japanese did not treat their prisoners of war well, this is
true; but we Americans ended up dropping the only nuclear weapons used
for purposes of war. Americans are responsible for eugenics programs
(quickly abolished, thankfully), Native American reservations
(including genocide of entire tribes), and many other atrocities
(industrial waste, etc.), and yet somehow we manage to fool ourselves
into thinking we're the "good guys". I'd like to think we've come a
long way from our beleagured history, and that we cannot judge our
bretheren by their past history (Germans, Japanese, being the
convenient case studies).

That being said, the Japanese have a fine code of ethics as a whole
(note that I am unfortunately stereotyping island-dwelling Japanese),
involving duty over self, family over ambition, and work over wealth.
To put it personally, I've never met a bad Japanese doctor, though I
can't say the same about other countries. They care about their
patients, their patient's family, etc.

As far as the Street Sam moniker is concerned, I liken it to the title
of "Flapper" from the Prohibition Era in the US, or "Goth" in the
80's/90's. It just represents a popular image of the times, an image
that many individuals emulate and imitate. Although your Street Sam
character might make a distinction between "true Sammies" and
"wannabes", I'm sure the 2060 public and, in the later years, pop
culture historians won't care to make the distinction as such... they
will lump all those cybered razorboys into the stereotypical group. So
really, it is a matter of perspective.

Hahns Shin, MS II
Budding cybersurgeon
"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already
know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be
killed."
-G. K. Chesterton